To carry on in the spring of 2017 as if what was happening was anything approaching normalcy required a determined suspension of critical faculties. And tremendous powers of denial.

I’ve been sympathetic to this impulse to denial, as one doesn’t ever want to believe that the government of the United States has been made dysfunctional at the highest levels, especially by the actions of one’s own party. Michael Gerson, a con­servative columnist and former senior adviser to President George W. Bush, wrote, four months into the new presidency, “The conservative mind, in some very visible cases, has become diseased,” and conservative institutions “with the blessings of a president … have abandoned the normal constraints of reason and compassion.”

For a conservative, that’s an awfully bitter pill to swallow. So as I layered in my defense mechanisms, I even found myself saying things like, “If I took the time to respond to every presiden­tial tweet, there would be little time for anything else.” Given the volume and velocity of tweets from both the Trump campaign and then the White House, this was certainly true. But it was also a monumental dodge. It would be like Noah saying, “If I spent all my time obsessing about the coming flood, there would be little time for anything else.” At a certain point, if one is being honest, the flood becomes the thing that is most worthy of attention. At a certain point, it might be time to build an ark.

Okay, yes, Donald Trump is a big problem, and the Congressional Republicans have to quit looking away when the president does bad things. But then:

So, where should Republicans go from here? First, we shouldn’t hesitate to speak out if the president “plays to the base” in ways that damage the Republican Party’s ability to grow and speak to a larger audience. Second, Republicans need to take the long view when it comes to issues like free trade: Populist and protectionist policies might play well in the short term, but they handicap the country in the long term. Third, Republicans need to stand up for institutions and prerogatives, like the Senate filibuster, that have served us well for more than two centuries.

Sounds like a whiff to me. He’s right about how Republicans need to distance themselves forcefully from the president’s more obnoxious and spiteful statements and policies. And he’s right about defending institutional norms. But Flake’s second principle gives his game away. Where does he think Trump came from, anyway? Whose jobs went away because of globalization? You don’t have to abandon the general principle of free trade to recognize that the system we have now has left millions of Americans stranded economically without much hope, and that something has to change. But in the book Flake proudly claims to be a “globalist”.

It would be wrong to read into that one line an entire worldview, but my guess is that Sen. Flake is one of those Republicans who believes that Trump is an aberration, and that if the GOP can just survive him, then it can return to Reaganite orthodoxy, and all will be well. If it is true that Flake believes this, then the Republican Party deserves what it gets. All of that was on offer in 2016, and was flatly rejected by GOP primary voters. Sen. Ben Sasse said recently that both parties were “exhausted” intellectually. One sees why. From what I’m able to gather from reading reviews, news reports, and other commentary online, Flake is quite good at calling out Trump’s flaws, and the bad habits in the Republican base that befouled our politics (e.g., believing and propagating conspiracy theories), but Flake’s alternative is nothing more than warmed over Goldwater libertarianism.

Barry Goldwater was the GOP nominee for president in 1964. The book Goldwater wrote, from which Flake copies the title of his own, appeared in 1960.

(If any of you readers have read the book and believe I have mischaracterized Flake’s counter-Trump version of conservatism, I welcome your corrective.)

None of this means Flake’s convictions are anything less than sincere or admirable. It’s just that the world has changed, and it’s not clear that Flake has changed with it.

If Republican opposition to Trump takes this form — that the problem with Trump is that he strays too far from libertarian orthodoxy — I can confidently say that the opposition will amount to nothing. Or rather, that it will amount to nothing more than a pretty good pitch to the Kochs and other like-minded donors to bankroll a hopeless presidential campaign.

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113 Responses to 1.5 Cheers For Jeff Flake

I also remember when families owned small stores & restaurants & their own children helped behind the counter or waited tables. I expect they put in many more hours than we’d feel to be appropriate today but this helped them to survive & grow their business.

You mean back in the olden times of 1980s?

Protip: Using minors and working ridiculous wasn’t acceptable back then either. We’ve regressed.

“Might Trump act less goofy and more presidential if he was not under the added pressure of millions of people heavily influenced by the leftist media assuming the worst from him (often because elites do not care for the fact that the lowly working class largely determined an election result)”

Boo-hoo.

Guess what? W got a lot of mockery and criticism, and a lot of his working class white voters were mocked too (Jesusland!). Still, for all his faults, he largely behaved like an adult.

Obama was called every named under the book ,and our current president was peddling conspiracy theories under the sun, and his minority working class supporters were derided as mooches (Obamaphones!). And yet, he behaved like an adult.

The fact that a 70 year old millionaire president is getting more latitude than, say, a 12 year old black kid playing with a real-life looking gun might be the most disgusting thing about America today.

Pinocchio:
“He did explain it. The hotel business is covered under a different program. THEN he pointed out that even if we are talking about that, you cannot ask business to unilaterally disadvantage itself in the market. You have to change the law for everyone. It was very clear to anyone who a) listened and b) has an IQ north of 90. I’m going to be charitable and assume you just didn’t listen, Jon.

Also, if you want to cut the H-2 program. No prob. Let’s do it!”

Well I’ll admit I may not be a genius. But I do have the good sense to know 1) not to insult people, and 2) when I hear a dodge.

It’s a dodge to argue on one hand that low-skilled foreign laborers should be kept out of the country, but then say “well, we get to keep OUR low-skilled foreign labor at our businesses because tax code blah blah.” That’s some weak sauce.

For the record I am not particularly pro or anti low-skilled foreigners entering our country. I am, however, against my president being a hypocrite. (I will say, he’s pretty consistent in that regard).

BTW “unilaterally disadvantaging itself in the market” could also be interpreted as leadership within the market. Plenty of businesses take principled stances that hurt their bottom line. Of course we shouldn’t expect Trump to have the vision or cojones to unilaterally do that. Just because he’s living in that White House dump doesn’t mean he’s a leader.

Protip: Using minors and working ridiculous wasn’t acceptable back then either. We’ve regressed.”
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I agree even a good thing can be taken too far, but don’t you think families working together & children learning skills & work ethics from their parents is a conservative ideal?
I know a number of very successful people who began working as children in their family’s restaurant or grocery store.

As Dr Ward correctly points out in the article:
“Flake is trying to have it both ways. He writes a book attacking Trump, while sending out fundraising pitches to wealthy donors claiming to stand with the president: pure swamp.”

I know a number of very successful people who began working as children in their family’s restaurant or grocery store.

My father for one. His brothers took over the store when their father got too old. My father preferred teaching chemistry. But they all got their start working in the grocery store. Those were the days when the store owner knew his customers and could extend credit for years… and when those out of work for much of the Depression got jobs in defense plants, they actually paid it all back.

“In terms of wages, there are multiple of studies that unfortunately are inconclusive in proving the impact of Immigration on native wages. ”

No they aren’t. There is solid evidence of a small but real downward pressure on real wages for Americans in lowest skill/education categories. The ‘studies’ that claim otherwise are either based on unique events (the Mariel boatlift) or mostly theoretical. BTW, even Card’s Mariel boatlift study noted that unskilled Americans left Miami during the period to find greener pastures elsewhere. The same has happened in California, where working/tradesmen class Americans left for the NW due to lowered wages caused by immigrants (and in the case of construction workers, strike breaking immigrants).

Very few illegal aliens work in ag — only 2% according to a 2006 study by Pew Hispanic Trust (why no Pew white trust).

More work in landscaping — hardly a critical function and in fact I’d say most places in California are way overlandscaped now (a factor in overuse of water).

And yet more work in construction. But we had construction in the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s before the illegal immigration tidalwave really got going.

What we see is a slippage. Used to be ‘Americans won’t pick crops’ (not true even that but, okay, most of use can’t imagine that as a career).

Then it was ‘Americans won’t mow lawns’.

Then it was ‘Americans won’t make hotel beds’

Then it was ‘Americans won’t wash dishes’

Then it was ‘Americans won’t process meat’

But in all these cases, Americans were doing those things. Yes, at higher wages, so maybe some cost to consumer and maybe less of each activity (a guy might mow his own lawn if he has to pay $100 per month vs. $50 per month for a ‘gardener’).

Overall that was better for the prosperity of Americans.

Oh, and the employment situation in OH is very much affected by that in California, Arizona, etc. Millions of Americans moved to California and the ‘Sunbelt’ from other states to find work when we actually enforced the border. Now, Americans are leaving (at least California).

The US spent most of its early history with high international trade barriers. Most Federal revenue came from tariffs and duties. The results were spectacular (and, btw, a major reason for Southern elite’s discontent…they were free traders!).

Free trade may be good in theory, but in reality we get trade deficits, out of work Americans, and most importantly foreigners controlling our assets (where do you think all that surplus money we send to China goes).

BTW Toyota just announced a new plant being built in the US. Trump effect?

RE: I know a number of very successful people who began working as children in their family’s restaurant or grocery store.

You can still find this sort of thing. A couple of weekends ago I was up in Michigan and spent that Sunday with cousins who live in the Irish Hills region. We stopped for lunch at a place where a couple of the employees were improbably young, and we speculated that the owners must have their kids working for therm.
That said child labor regs are more strictly enforced these days (I recall working well beyond the appointed the time and hours as a teenager) and corporate chains are much less likely to risk violations than some small family business out in the boondocks.

M_Young,
Just one example I know, but my son in law’s family can confirm that no American will wash dishes at their restaurant. Or at least not any longer than a couple days. They just work long enough to buy drugs, or they get busted for the same, or some other issue keeps them from being dependable.
So his family washes the dishes themselves.

[NFR: I have heard a similar thing from small business owners: that black and white American workers are often undependable for exactly this reason. Latino immigrants, on the other hand, are solidly dependable. — RD]